Tourism: Needs site-based master plan to attract tourists

Bangladesh is one of the attractive locations for tourists in south Asian countries. In 2018, the total number of departures around the world recorded almost 1.6 billion (World Development Indicators, World Bank). In the last decade, the total number of international tourist arrivals in the Asia and Pacific region increased from 184 million to 343 million, that means this number inflated by more than 86% (ourworldindata.org, 2020). Bangladesh observed more than 120% of tourists in Bangladesh. It proves that the total inflow of tourists increased in the last decade. In 2017, more than 1 million tourists arrived in Bangladesh.

Tourist spot: Sajek Valley

However, our tourism industry suffers a lot. The share of tourists’ arrivals in Bangladesh compared to South Asia countries still around 4%. We failed to attract tourists from the world if we compare it with other countries of South Asia. A total of 4.1 million tourists visited Bangladesh in the last decade. The interesting point is that about 16 million tourists every year of the last decade were added in the tourism market of Asia and the Pacific region while Bangladesh had only attracted 56 thousand additional tourists annually (i.e. 0.34% of the Asia and Pacific region). What are the impediments for the tourism sector to flourish? One of the vital issues among others is the higher cost for tourists compared to neighboring countries (databd.co, 2020). Average daily travel costs in Bangladesh for tourist is about US$ 54 while 60% accounts for accommodations. If we compare it with India, where the average travel cost is nearly half of ours. It reveals that our costing structure should be revised to attract more tourists in our country. However, our security measures have been improved in the last few years.

The major issue is lacking in the reluctancy of the development of tourist spots with a long-term plan. Currently, there is no such master plan for developing the existing and new tourist spots. Importance has to be put on the development of a master plan for developing our tourism sector. For instance, GoB can utilize the importance of the Sajek tourist spot by improving the infrastructures by giving the appropriate right to the private sector with a structural plan. Without this, the spot will observe the number of new unplanned hotels which will affect the ambience of the beauty in the future. Hence, the development master plan for every tourist spot can give the future shape to develop the sectors. 

Written by: Shuvro Guda, Unnayan Shamannay